REFLECTIONS FROM THE REARVIEW
  • Home
  • Hello and Welcome
  • Blog
  • Random Gatherings
  • My Book
  • FAQ

Keeping on Keeping On

11/18/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
​If there is one thing that will garner criticism as time rolls along, it is your habits. You can be separated from good company based on your habits, those things you do over and over. Divorce lawyers must sometimes be agog. “It’s the way he clears his throat in the morning. It drives me crazy. I’ve been listening to that for sixty years now!”

Habits are by nature unconscious. Aristotle weighed in on this idea, claiming you could turn it all around, that goodness could be learned by consciously retreading the same virtuous actions over and again. It’s certainly one way of looking at it. People can wring their hands over habits, thinking their glass is half empty when in fact it is half full. Habits can be your undoing, but they can also be your salvation. 

As human beings, one of the creature comforts in life are those things you repeatedly do. Each retread adds a personal history to action and makes it welcome and familiar. Habits are those patterns that people who live together both embrace and learn to work around. They establish a rhythm and a flavour to life. What you do without thinking is as revealing as what you do deliberately. 

It’s what we all are, a collection of habits. Sometimes we disagree with other people and yet witnessing their habits fills in the cracks in life. It gives volume and resonance to things we might wonder about that we don’t pursue ourselves. I was thinking this over regarding a very old friend with whom I had been in contact recently. We come from the same stock. Large families, all boys. It’s an odd thing to tie you together because otherwise we are quite different. He is daring, the kind of person who will try anything. I am cautious, the kind of person who must be pushed. Together, we can be an interesting discussion. He has at times put a bit of salt on life in areas I have been too timid to pursue. 

One of those areas is romance. My friend is like the proverbial character in a road trip movie, he’s up for everything and anything. Age has not changed him. He is still out there on the chase, sending pictures of his most recent love interest. He is in love with romance. It is still the thing that gets him into trouble, and if you are still getting into trouble, you are not dead yet. 

Habits also get things done. There are those work habits that give cadence and metre to any function. I witness this when I see my wife cook, She is a creature of good habits. She tends to (in a whir) wash dishes as she cooks. There is never any stray spoon sitting on a counter when she is done. It looks like Martha Stewart’s kitchen once the production crew has wrapped filming. Food on the table and everything pristine and in order. All because of those good habits. 

I am not like this. A lot of what I do can look like chaos in motion, and yet I have learned to have patience with my own habits. They are just another way of arriving at the finish line. I am not like my wife. If you tell me to wash my dishes en route, it will just mess me up. I am the guy with the messy logic, whose work area can look like chaos and yet I know where everything is and the chaos is welcome cover that lets me proceed on my own terms. It’s the way I get things done. 

Comfort level is what it comes down to I think. You need to have those habits in your aresenal because they grease the wheels of necessary work. They give it your own spin and make you feel just a little more in control, to give a nod to process and make it somewhat your own. 

What is true in life is that habits all arrive somewhere. Those who are not particularly talented, but who practise a habit of working nonetheless will make up for what is mediocre, by volume. Eventually those streams might become a rushing river. You might even get good at the thing you do over and over. 

I remember when my mom was in the last years of her life. She had always been a whir of motion, way too busy. It was sometimes exhausting just to watch her. She had a coterie of go-to’s from baking, to sewing, things to get busy with when you were not busy. I always thought she took on too much, especially when it came to volunteering to do unsolicited work for people I considered to be cranks. My mom had a collection of them. They were the all-too-often recipients of her baking (an extra tray of buns that needed eating) et cetera. 

In the last week of my Mom’s life, in between bouts of pneumonia, she cleaned and sewed, and baked. She had punctuated that downward spiral with the stuff she always did. One of the last things she did was make a pan of date squares. She did that, then died. We served those same date squares at the reception after her funeral. Some of those cranks came up, date square in hand, and teary eyed. “We sure loved your Mom. Man, that woman really knew how to work”.

So keep on, keeping on. You never know where it will take you. Habits sum up and punctuate who you are. I won’t say less is more, on this occasion. Sometimes more of the same is just the medicine that is needed. Sometimes you have to lean in and depend on all those habits. When they say “Go with what the good Lord gave you,” I think they are talking about habits. They may be the best thing about you, and at times, your salvation. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    UNCOMMON
    ​THOUGHTS

    ...about common things. 
    ​

    Categories

    All
    Accidental Story
    Activist
    Adjusting The Recipe
    Adult Admission
    A Flannery O'Connor Moment
    After The Tiger
    A High Christology
    A Little Bit Redneck
    A Little Lower Than The Angels
    All About Widgets
    Allah Wallahi
    Al Low Vs The Man
    All Saints
    A Long List Of Thank Yous
    Amazing Grace
    A Month Of Sundays
    An Offer You Can’t Refuse
    Antique
    A Pile Of Wood And A Plan
    Are We There Yet?
    Artifact
    At Hand
    Attending To Beauty
    At War
    Bad-Ass Outlaw
    Bad Faith
    Badlands
    Baked Boiled Or Fried?
    Balcony Lady
    Beautiful By Design
    Beauty For Ashes
    Being Human
    Belial
    Beneficence
    Beware Of Men Who Cry
    Big Buts Of The Bible
    Blessed Are The Pew Warmers
    Bound For Beauty
    British Invasion
    Bronte Oak
    Bucket List
    But If Not
    But Is It Sandable
    But Is It True?
    Buyer Beware
    Camp Of The Unknown God
    Carlton The Delivery Man
    Chaos
    Cherry Top
    Class Monitors And Safety Patrols
    Clothing Optional
    Cloud Of Witnesses
    Contra Mundum
    Couldn't Not
    Counting The Cost
    Covid Cut
    Creed
    Crucified Man
    Dangerous
    Dangerous Chemicals Of My Youth
    Dieu Et Mon Droit
    Different Drum
    Distressed
    Doing The Lord's Work
    Do It Yourself
    Do-Over
    Do Something!
    Dreaming And Doing
    Edifice
    Egging Armour Hill
    Even As I Am Known
    Even Me
    Even Stranger Things
    Fallow Season
    Family Bible
    Family Business
    Fellowship Of The Brush
    Field Of Faith
    First World Chair
    Fit As You Go
    Fixing The Machine
    Flawed People
    Flock Of Angels
    Follow The Money
    For A Time Such As This
    Fortissimo!
    French Horn
    From A Distance
    Frozen Man
    Funny Words
    Genetic Lottery
    Gifting
    Good Bones
    Good God Almighty
    Good Government
    Good Luck Skippy
    Gott Mit Uns
    Greatest Is Love
    Gross Anatomy
    Grunt
    Haka!
    Hammer And Tong
    Hands And Eyes
    Happy Rooster
    Hearing Voices
    Hello My Juan
    Helping God Show Off
    Hidden In The Secret Place
    High Dudgeon
    History Bites
    Hockey Tape And Rubber Bands
    Holy Disorder
    Home Economics
    I AM
    I Cannot Help You
    I Could Be Wrong
    I Dare You
    Idiots
    If You Build It
    If You Get There Before I Do
    Im Khalil
    Impossibly Cute
    In A Strange Land
    Incarnation
    Influencer
    In My Own Time
    Inner FIfteen Year Old
    In The Details
    In The Usual Manner
    Invader
    Judge Not
    Just A Few Words
    Justice
    Just In Our Own Time
    Just Like God
    Keep Calm And...
    Keeper
    Keeping House
    Keeping On Keeping On
    KJV
    Knock Yourself Out
    Kumbaya
    Kybo
    Lamentations
    Lemonade
    Less Is More
    Let Me Count The Ways
    Let's Go RIde A BIke
    Linked In
    Little Boxes
    Liturgy
    Lo And Behold
    Logos
    LOL
    Looking Back On The Forward Looking
    Looking For Some Real Good News
    Lord Jesus It’s A FIRE
    Lorem-ipsum-dolor
    Lost-and-found
    Luck Of The Stable
    Magical
    Make-a-baby-laugh
    Make It Nice
    Maker
    Maker’s Mark
    Ma-pitom
    Marbles-in-spring
    Measure Of A Man
    Memory Box
    Men In Loincloths
    Men's Barber Shop
    Middle Ground
    Middleman
    Mistakes All In
    Montreal Spice
    More
    Morse Code
    Mosh Pit
    My Neighbour
    Myth Of Sisyphus
    My Wife The Movie Star
    Name Calling
    Natural
    Neighbour
    New Day
    New Wine
    Next To Godliness
    Next Year Country
    No Fancy Diagram Needed
    No King But Caesar
    None Deserving
    North Of Ground Level
    Nothing Particularly Important
    Nothing Personal
    Not Waiting For Godot
    No Wonder
    Oak
    One Coffee At A Time
    One Smart Farmer
    One Thing
    On Richard Rohr
    On The Lam
    On Writing Clearly
    Ordinary Time
    Out Of Egypt
    Over And Again
    Paint Over That
    Paper Boy
    Particularity
    Particulate Matter
    Part Of The Tradition
    Pater Noster
    Patina
    Pelagian
    Perfect
    Perfect Crime
    Perfect Ride
    Philosemite
    Pilate's Dilemma
    Pinky Swear
    Place At The Table
    Playing Favourites
    Pop-a-corn!
    Potato War
    Preaching Parrot
    Predators
    Prince
    Print Shop
    Prisoner Of Jesus Christ
    Proof Text
    Psalm 1
    Psalm 19
    Put Away The Books
    Putting Up The Lights
    Reduce Reuse Recycle
    Restoration
    Rosemary And The Drug Dealers
    Sandwich
    Say My Name
    Scars
    Second Naiveté
    Seeing Red
    Seven Sixty-Five
    Shouting From The Areopagus
    Shrove-tuesday
    Silent-witness
    Small-c
    Small-graces
    Sore-afraid
    Squat
    Starting With What Is True
    Street Food
    Superstar
    Take-a-punch
    Takedown
    Talking-head
    Talking Your Parents Down From The Ledge
    Telling-the-story
    Thanksgiving
    The-best-for-last
    The Bliss Of Ignorance
    The Church Invisible
    Thecrossingking
    The Evil Day
    The-general
    The Great Mystery
    The-joys-of-hash
    Themysteryofthecheshirecat
    The-particularity-of-place
    The-quickening
    Therefore-choose-life
    The Table-ness Of A Table
    The Way
    Though One Be Raised From The Dead
    Thoughts On Sixty
    Three Jews And A Gentile
    Thrice Wise
    Throwing The Spaghetti Against The Wall
    Timeless
    Time Vs Time
    Tim Falladay
    Tims No More
    Tonto And Me
    Touching Stones
    Trevor’s Super Bad Day
    Trick Key
    Tubafore!
    Unbelievable
    Under A Bush? HELL NO!
    Uninvited
    Unspectacular
    Use Gently
    Watching Paint Dry
    Wayside Chapel
    Weaker Sex (?)
    We Stand On Guard For Thee
    We Were Waiting
    What Are You Prepared To DO?
    What Lazarus Knew
    When Cows Fly
    When Odd Becomes Interesting
    Why I Still Like Cowboys
    Witness
    Woke
    Wood Show
    Woodworking Lessons In Empathy
    Words
    Words... The Right Tool
    Worthy Adversary
    You And Me And Rob

    RSS Feed

Contact Us

    Subscribe Today!

Submit
Picture
  • Home
  • Hello and Welcome
  • Blog
  • Random Gatherings
  • My Book
  • FAQ